thread: 2005-03-11 : Love, Friendship, Romance, Sex
On 2005-03-15, xenopulse wrote:
Meguey,
Good points there. Allow me to comment.
Some partners feel threatend by erotica, others don't.
That's a good comparison, actually an excellent one, because often playing freeform online feels a lot like collaborative writing. That makes it easier to do certain things. However, it also includes a certain effect on the player/writer at times, especially when sensuality/sexuality is involved, because you're basically reading another person's erotica that's tailored just for you. And the resulting effect (you indicate it with "filled with passion and joy and desire") might be intended or not, but it certainly is something I would not want to share openly with my face-to-face group. I have a hard time imagining a group I could be *that* comfortable with. So it's not even my partner who's the problem, because we easily share these kinds of things—it's the comfort level with the other players who don't usually get to see that side of me.
When the relationship impacts *plot*, it's fine to focus there.
Again, I agree completely. That's why I think we can try and focus on the influence of relationships on character actions, instead of on the detailed process of building up the relationships.
I wonder if The Mountain Witch model of relationship development might be a jumping-off point to a structure of rules that supports romantic play.
Certainly. Risky investment based on trust in the hope that something great will come out of it when the trust is not abused. What else would a relationship be? I haven't played tMW yet, so I'd need to look at it more closely, but it seems to be definitely on the right track.
And as we can see from Tim's post above, that's all going in the right direction of expectations, mechanical support, and understanding among the players.
- Christian
